In 2021 I was a member of a cancer support group, “Memoir Writing.” Each week participants met to workshop ideas and share their assignment from the previous week’s prompt. One of those prompts was simply, “Before Sunrise.” This was my response.
“Before Sunrise” is a romantic film starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Set in Vienna circa 1995, it follows two strangers who have just met on a train. They decide to spend the day together despite knowing they’ll each go in different directions at the end of it. They dine in restaurants, listen to obscure music at a dusty record store, explore an overgrown cemetery, and throughout the day they become closer and closer. Their felicitous tête-à-tête is the key to opening their hearts to each other. But in the end they must part. How romantic.
I was a teenager when I saw that movie and it made me wonder. Was this how people actually fall in love, or is it ‘Hollywood’? The answer? Usually, Hollywood. Think of our classic culprits. Pretty Woman, Titanic, and When Harry Met Sally. Those all seemed a bit counterfeit. Is this how I’m supposed to talk to boys? Delivering quippy one-liners and looking around to see who I’ve captured with such sweet bait? Trust me, no one wants to hear “This car corners like it’s on rails,” from a shy rural girl who hasn’t mastered hair products yet. Give me something I can USE! Perhaps “Before Sunrise” was on to something I hadn’t observed before, veracious conversation.
Years later I was keen to glean some advice on love. Unfortunately, my mother died of ovarian cancer when I was 21, so she wasn’t around to talk to. But she’s the one who ignited my movie fandom, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that I looked to cinema in her stead.
During summer break before my senior year of college, I had a date. Gabriel and I had been sleeping together for a couple weeks and decided a meal together might also be fun. He worked in restaurants and took me to what he considered the best place in town; a small northern Italian joint called Trattoria Fratelli. I remember the atmosphere was enchanting. We sat outside in their private garden patio cloaked in the late summer dusk with the last of the fireflies peppered about. We started with a wood oven white pizza. Deliscioso. Next, something funny happened. [Pause] I took one of his house-made croutons off his Caesar salad. He eyed my hand as it crept to his plate and lingered there as I popped it in my mouth. His gaze didn’t follow my movement. It stayed on the empty space left in the crouton’s wake, as if lamenting the loss. I realized: he doesn’t share food. Big dilemma because I do. I put a pin in that.
More than the delectable food, I remember the feeling. The comfortable, casual feeling you get when you’re completely enamoured with someone and time just flies. I felt like I couldn’t get enough. I wanted second and third helpings of him. Magic happened in the conversation, prying us open like a shucker does an oyster. I was fascinated with the pearls I discovered. He was an army brat who grew up in Germany and moved to my home town. He was smart, athletic, and very funny. Maybe I could pull that pin out of the salad crouton problem. I attempted to dazzle him with my art history knowledge and my weekend warrior rugby-playing skills. We were enjoying drinking each other in as much as we were enjoying drinking the shiraz. Sharing joie de vivre! Between the wine, his wit, and the fresh memory of how he looked in bed, I was ready to run away with him that very night. This was intimacy on another level. This was love.
If you’ve ever watched the sequel to “Before Sunrise” which is called “Before Sunset,” you’ll know that after a 9 year gap, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke have reunited for one day only, again. It’s a bit ambiguous if they stay together this time. As for me and my handsome raconteur. We didn’t wait 9 years. We waited 13! Then got married in New Orleans, with an uproarious cacophony of ceremony that is a traditional 2nd line wedding parade. Let the Good Times Roll!
If Mom were there, she would agree, THAT was better than any Hollywood movie moment.
Bridget and Gabriel in New Orleans, 2016.
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